YouTube goes full throttle on mobile and VR business

Popular video sharing enterprise YouTube have finally signalled their intent to target the lucrative mobile business in the coming years.

A few years down the line, we could see YouTube services available exclusively on mobile platforms which include smartphones and tablets across all platforms.

“For us, most of our focus is on mobile: product development for mobile, content development for mobile, making sure mobile video works on carrier networks all around the world. It’s all mobile, mobile, mobile,” said Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s head of content and business operations.

“It’s a very difficult place to figure out, yet at the same time a massive opportunity, because consumers love engaging with those devices. We think it’s all about mobile, and that’s where we’re putting most of our efforts across the board… We think that phone is the remote control for your life, and it’s definitely the remote control for your video,” he added.

While YouTube registered a growth of 50 per cent in overall video views year on year, the increase was over a 100 per cent in mobile platforms. Site visits on mobile platforms took up over 50 per cent of total visits registered in the previous year.

YouTube stressed that while TVs and theatres continue to show movies and TV shows, they are not interactive and viewers do not get to comment on them or even flag them.

With more and more smartphones capable of offering 4k displays and with VR gadgets with 360 degree viewing experiences entering the market, YouTube aims to cash in on the advanced technologies available to users at a time when Facebook videos are gaining increasing popularity across the world.

At the same time, the company sees growth coming in significantly from developing countries which could outpace the UK, UK and Europe.

“We may see traction coming out of India and not Europe, or out of Latin America and not the US… The short answer [to whether VR will be big] is I don’t know. We don’t know. But we know it’s going to be important in some fashion,” said Kyncl.

To achieve revenues, YouTube has also relied increasingly on subscription-based programmes like the YouTube Music Key music streaming service and a plan to initiate an ad-free subscription service.

With the pace at which modern technologies are being embraced by users across the world, YouTube's initiatives may soon make traditional entertainment devices like TVs and home theatre systems obsolete in the coming years.